One of the really beautiful things that came out of the most recent learning journey between Tennessee and New Hampshire/Massachusettes was a revitalization of several core relationships in TN. The roots of re are in Tennessee, and it was wonderful to reconnect. We are delighted to be continuing to re-engage more with relationships with friends, colleagues, and partners in TN. As that happens, we will continue to support the garden in Amesbury, MA at Camp Kent, and are looking forward to building further North-South relationships and alliances, especially around the future of education.
As part of this, we are looking towards offering a Summer Solstice gathering in Tennessee - stay tuned for more information!
And we are looking towards the possibility of doing a podcast series on regenerative education. Please do reach out (just respond to this email) if you have topics or people whom you would love to hear us talk about!
Fourth of July: What if there are regenerative roots that we are missing?
As we come up to the Fourth of July, we would like to invite you to join us for a unique online gathering delving into the indigenous roots of democracy.
Fourth of July: the celebration of America’s birthday, and with that, the founding of a democratic nation whose practices of democracy have become the model (sometimes an enforced model) for people around the world.
This year, being a particularly fraught, stressful, and worrisome election year in the U.S., the meaning of key symbols like the American flags and “freedom” and “America” and even “what is the rule of law” and “what is democratic governance” are even more contentious than usual.
Most of the writing and thinking about democracy does not acknowledge the critical indigenous roots and the European-indigenous dialogues that made democracy possible.
Indeed, core “American” values such as “freedom”, “liberty” and “independence” were practiced by Indigenous peoples in what we now refer to as the United States. It is from - and quite likely only from - learning from the modeling of the indigenous peoples that the European settlers, coming from a highly constrained social structures, were able to learn how to practice and enact their aspirational values.
As our own democratic nation struggles, what might we learn from these histories?
We invite you to this special upcoming gathering to go deeper into these themes and to explore what they mean.
Please do join us on July 4 for this online event!
Can we possibly honor this holiday without deepening into the roots of the expressed values of independence, freedom, and happiness... which were very much inspired by the European settlers' indigenous neighbors?
Join Sara Jolena wolcott, Kristine Marie Hill, and Montgomery Hill this 4th of July at 1 pm ET in a cross-cultural dialogue where we will get into some of what actually happened, some of the structures and governance and symbols, and collaboratively think about re-narrating this important history.
Resources:
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow (Book)
Southern Environmental Law Center - Showcases inspiring stories against climate change (Website)
What food companies don't want you to know - Johnny Harris (Video)
Can we create the "perfect" farm? - Brent Loken - TED-Ed (Video)
Meet The Plastic-Eating Worms | Planet Fix | BBC Earth Science (Video)
Restoring Agrarian Commons - Severine von Tscharner Welcome (Agrarian Trust) - Ma Earth (Podcast)
Beyond Legacy Carbon Credits - Josh Knauer (ReSeed) - Ma Earth (Podcast)
Events:
Weed Watcher Program - Join the Lake Gardner Association for a 2 hour Weed Watcher training class at the Camp Kent Nature Center in Amesbury on Monday, June 17th at 3 PM.
9th National Conference on Community and Restorative Justice - NACRJ